


Notes on a Marriage that Isn't

by queeniegalore



Category: Generation Kill
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-15
Updated: 2012-02-15
Packaged: 2017-10-31 05:18:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/340360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queeniegalore/pseuds/queeniegalore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They're married in every way that counts, except one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Notes on a Marriage that Isn't

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a challenge and never reposted in my journal (as far as I can remember).
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own the characters, nor have any association with the real people the characters are based on. Pure non-profit fiction.

_The way they held hands when they were alone, the way they woke each other up with coffee and the paper, the way they argued over music and religion and politics, the way they sometimes went for a week without sex, the way there was always a kiss goodnight, the way there were slippers and goldfish and walking the dog._

_All the ways that counted._

 

~

 

So they weren’t married, but it wasn’t because they weren’t forever, and it wasn’t like Ray hadn’t proposed with an onion ring at a diner one night. Brad had straight up laughed in his face, of course, but Ray took it like a man, ate the onion ring and got awesome head later that night in apology. They weren’t married, technically, they didn’t have it written on a piece of paper and shit, there weren’t even that many people who knew they were a couple at all. But they were never ones to be hung up on a technicality. Marines were trained to obey rules like breathing, sure, but _Recon_ Marines were encouraged to think outside the box. Ray couldn’t think of a better way to describe what they were doing.

 

~

 

_Ray liked his coffee black, in a mug, with two sugars. No fuss. No extra flavoring. No little glasses with napkins tied around them. Confronted with a saucer, his brain would almost implode with the confusion. Who needed that kinda complication? Coffee. Mug. Sugar. Those were things he understood._

_He didn’t understand delicate blendings of flavour, or three inches of foam, or patterns rendered in chocolate powder. He didn’t understand tiny little cookies (‘biscotti, you fuckin’ redneck’) placed on the fuckin’ saucer next to the cup, cookies that you apparently weren’t supposed to shove in your mouth three at once._

_What he couldn’t complain about, though, were the flavors all that fancy crap left in his sergeant’s mouth._

_Caramel from his latte in the mornings, rich and sweet, tempering the taste of bitter coffee. Vanilla sugar sprinkled on his cappuccino? Ray gave him shit for it, but licking the tiny granules out of the corner of Brad’s mouth later, he thanked God in heaven and baristas everywhere. Any sort of peppermint syrup on Brad’s breath would make Ray break out in a cold sweat._

_The café mocha with lunch one day, though, just about drove him to distraction. He watched Brad’s lips on the cup, the dark, deep smell of coffee, chocolate and sex drifting around them, and tried not to completely lose control. When Brad’s tongue darted out to lick the chocolate powder, Ray knew he was in trouble. When Brad scooped up some foam on his finger and sucked it into his mouth, he could only shove back his chair and get the hell out of the café. Brad followed, and by the time Ray was done with him, every molecule of chocolate coffee had been licked out of his mouth._

_“Tastes so fucking good,” Ray whispered, lips brushing against Brad’s as he spoke, “You taste so fucking good.”_

_“You know,” Brad replied, a tiny, breathless laugh escaping his mouth and getting lost in Ray’s, “You could always just order the good crap for yourself.”_

_And Ray could only laugh back. “Actually drink that shit? You kidding me? Nah.” Another lick, a long, lingering suck on Brad’s lower lip. “I just like the taste of it…on you.”_

 

~

 

Ray’s sister knew about them, so that was okay. She wanted her brother at her wedding, and if he wanted to take his tall, handsome Marine boyfriend, well that was fine with her. They weren’t out – because Brad wasn’t out of the Marines – but close family were in on the secret, and Ray and his sister were too tight for him to keep that from her.

 

If anyone else at the wedding asked about why Ray hadn’t brought a date, or wanted to know about Brad, he just said that he was a Marine buddy who had wanted to see Missouri. The excuse was tentative at best because, as Brad put it, who the fuck ever went to Missouri on purpose? But it worked because the idea of them being a couple just wasn’t something anyone would think of.

 

Shit. For the first few years they knew each other, it wasn’t even something _they’d_ thought of.

 

~

 

_Ray had no time for keys._

_He’d spent too much time in war zones to be bothered with them. He figured anything that couldn’t be kicked could probably be persuaded by a couple of well placed bursts from his SAW, and everything else? Probably wasn’t worth it. Keys got in the way; Ray moved too fast. Little metal obstacles slowing him down._

_He did accede to the need for a key to his Chevy. He’d had to hotwire her once, and it hurt him almost as much as it hurt the damn car. He remembered Brad staring incredulously at him, calling him a retard hick who’d forget his own head if it hadn’t been bolted on in whatever backwoods redneck meth lab he’d been cooked up in._

_“Yeah, yeah,” Ray had muttered, wincing as he stripped the wires. “You can tell me all about it later when you’re done sucking my dick.”_

_The first time he lost the keys to the Chevy he almost cried. The second, Brad said “Oh, for fuck’s sake, Ray,” and offered to attach them to him in a way that involved industrial drilling and hot glue. Ray couldn’t explain it. He loved the car more than most people, but the damn keys just kept getting lost in the most ridiculous places. And he wasn’t even going to get into the lengths he’d had to go to to break into his apartment._

_Brad was different. Brad was thoughtful and meticulous and probably had his name printed on his underwear. Brad didn’t mind taking the time needed to sort through a key ring or actually turn a key in a lock without snapping it off. Ray hopped from foot to foot and waited, and if they ever needed to put a boot to something to get in, Ray was there. On one memorable occasion, with a broken toe._

_And once, when they were on vacation in Rio._

_Ray slowed down as they reach the door of the hotel room and let Brad get in front of him._

_“Ray, what are you doing?”_

_“Nothing. Open the door.”_

_“Why can’t you open the door?”_

_Ray looked embarrassed, actually scuffed his feet a little. “I, uh…”_

_“You lost your fucking key again, didn’t you.” Brad looked exasperated, but not surprised, not by a long shot. He took his own key out of his pocket and dangled it in the air. “This is why we can’t have nice things, fucktard. First vacation together in three years, and you lose your goddamn key.”_

_Ray shrugged and grinned. “Hey, at least we’ll have an interesting story to tell. See? I can already see you getting a boner at the idea of telling all our friends what an idiot I am and how you had to save the day. Right?”_

_Brad just rolled his eyes. “Stop talking. Why the hell can’t you hold on to any sort of lock opening device for more than ten minutes?”_

_Cocking his head to the side, Ray looked at Brad frankly. “Because I know you will,” he said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Hurry the fuck up, Bradley, I want a shower. Unlock the door.”_

_Ray really had no time for keys, not with all the shit he had to do, not with all the thoughts and words and_ Brad _running through his head. Why would he bother with keys?_

_Brad would always be there to take care of that, after all._

_~_

 

They’d been together for a while before they told anyone. Walt was first, because he and Ray were inseparable and he’d pretty much figured it out on his own. He’d been okay with it, not a hundred percent thrilled, not throwing parades and parties in their honor, but okay. He’d said he needed time to think about it, but he’d slapped Ray on the back and met his eyes, he hadn’t freaked out. And the next weekend he’d shown up with beer and Modern Warfare and things were mostly the same as always.

 

Not everyone was that smooth, some were smoother. Ray’s mom was delighted for them, if she hadn’t been sworn to secrecy she’d have started up her own chapter of PFLAG in Missouri and outed them to the entire state. Brad’s little brother refused to speak to him for months, and Ray concocted elaborate plans for revenge, which all pretty much came down to firebombing his house (Brad overruled any hostile action, which Ray was still kind of bitter about). Nate Fick went white and asked Brad if he’d considered the implications for his career, but he was with them every step of the way. Ray’s sister’s best friend burst into tears, because she’d been in love with Ray since they were all preteens and had already picked out baby names.

 

But most of their friends didn’t know. It was better that way, easier, safer. It made sense for Ray to be staying with Brad, because Ray had decided to go to school in San Diego and he had a part-time job at a mechanics a few blocks from Brad and he couldn’t afford his own place. The Iceman never talked about his sex life at work (Ray had always been an exception, long before he was an actual exception), and Ray invented elaborate stories about the girls he fucked which no one believed, but that was okay, because they’d never believed him anyway. They weren’t affectionate in public. They were the same as they always were, except one day Ray had punched Brad in the face and then kissed him so hard that he split Brad’s lip…and they hadn’t ever really stopped.

 

Everything had changed on such a fundamental level, but at the same time, nothing had changed at all.

 

~

 

_The air between them was hot and damp with sweat and energy and need. Ray almost expected to see sparks crackle and dance in front of his eyes, but there was only Brad._

_Only Brad, for so long, so_ damn _long, and finally something was being done about this crazy tension that threatened to either consume them both or tear them apart. A trail of blood was dripping down his cheek, there was a matching stream pouring out of Brad’s lower lip, and in between the mortification (I did that!) and the satisfaction (yeah…I did), Ray was having to struggle against the urge to lick it off._

_Except struggling against urges had brought them to this place, and maybe it was time to just give in and go with it, as fucked up as it sounded. Because the alternative? Was even worse._

_“So, you gonna punch me again or fucking kiss me?”_

_Brad’s voice was a low growl, it reached into Ray’s chest and yanked him forwards, Ray felt his body responding without thought._

_“What do you want me to do?” he asked, stepping closer and almost whispering the words into Brad’s ear. Brad’s tongue darted out, lapping briefly at his own blood._

_“Want you to stop playing your little games and-”_

_“Shuttup,” Ray muttered, and, still moving without thinking about it, grabbed a hold of Brad’s hair and wrenched his head down, letting their mouths meet in a clash of lips and teeth and lust and blood._

_The sparks flared and ignited, burning them both up. As Ray sucked on Brad’s, teeth grinding against the cut, he thought that being fucked up with Brad was better than being normal alone._

_Only Brad, though. Only Brad._

 

~

 

Brad wouldn’t ever get married anyway, whether it was to a man or a woman. That boat had sailed for him and, as Ray liked to point out, he was a bitter, twisted shell of a man because of it. Except that wasn’t true even a little bit, it was just a lie that worked with them because it couldn’t be any other way.

 

Brad loved the Marines too much to leave. Ray had made his peace with that. He knew that they were never going to be that gay couple pushing a stroller down to the park, knew they were never going to celebrate a silver wedding anniversary. There were things that just weren’t in their future. Ray had had to step back and balance it all out – and it turned out that a life with Brad outweighed a life without him, no matter which way he looked at it.

 

~

 

_“Come here.”_

_Brad usually went to bed before Ray, because he had to get up earlier, and most nights he was sound asleep by the time Ray finished his schoolwork and slipped in beside him. Most nights, but not all, Ray would curl up around him and kiss his shoulder and go to sleep wrapped up in the kind of intimacy they never really indulged in the real world._

_Actually, fuck that,_ what _real world?_

_Because some nights, the real world was exactly where they were. It was when Brad was still awake, warm and inviting, waiting for Ray to come to him. It was when he was already half hard from palming himself, getting himself ready. It was when Ray could brace himself over him, knees planted against Brad’s smooth sides, hands pushed against his shoulders._

_It was_ this _._

_“Kiss me,” Ray demanded, fumbling in the dark for Brad’s mouth, touching at his face. Brad’s lips were wet, sliding over Ray’s fingers, messy, and Ray could go from zero to a hundred in seconds, like fuck yeah_ this _was the real world, this was_ real _._

_It wasn’t like it had been in the beginning, it wasn’t fast and dangerous and volatile anymore. They moved together now, instead of against each other. Brad knew where to touch, where to bite, what to say. Ray knew how to run his mouth up Brad’s neck and yeah, even in the dark he could find the spot that made Brad shudder with pleasure. The guesswork had been taken out of the equation, and now every movement was born of the kind of familiarity that Ray had never thought he’d ever experience with anyone._

_And some nights, yeah, they got rough, or kinky, or pulled out the zip-ties and blindfolds. But it was the nights like this one that Ray secretly loved the most. The nights when Brad rolled them onto their sides, panting softly in Ray’s ear as he pushed into him. “Come on, come on,” he muttered as he gripped Ray’s dick, pumped him so perfectly that Ray almost forgot how to breathe. “C’mon, Ray…”_

_“Fuck, fuck yes,” Ray groaned, face buried in the pillow, wrapped up in Brad and the darkness. “Jesus, Brad.”_

_“You don’t have to call me Jesus in bed,” Brad grunted, and Ray laughed, even as Brad’s hand got faster, tighter, taking him closer to the edge. They weren’t going to last, neither of them, but whatever, they could save the hours-long marathon sex for the weekends. This wasn’t about anything more than being together, coming together while they could._

_“Shut up and fuck me, asshole,” he shot back, and Brad hummed, pushed Ray onto his stomach and stretched out over him. The new angle let him get deeper, and Ray cried out, scrambling at the sheets as he pumped into Brad’s hand, wedged against the mattress. “Shit, oh, shit,” he moaned, and Brad’s lips were at his ear urging him on and…_

_Yeah._ That _was real. It was knowing the taste of coffee in Brad’s mouth, it was knowing Brad would always be there to let him in. It was arguing over breakfast and the tiny scar on Brad’s lip from where Ray had punched him. It was looking at each other in public and_ knowing _, even if no one else did._

_It was Ray’s orgasm, the way he cried Brad’s name, the way Brad kissed the back of his neck and let him lose it. It was Brad going still and tense for a moment before melting into Ray like they were becoming the same person._

_It was everything they could ever need._

 

~

 

So they weren’t married. It wasn’t a big deal, not after all the years they’d been together. Thy didn’t have it on paper, and yeah, the more Ray thought about it, the less he wanted that anyway. He and Brad didn’t need something to tell them they were in love.

 

They lived it already. Every single day.


End file.
